Im a self taught guitar player whos been playing for 15 years or so, and I have reached a point where I cannot get any better. I have a decent ear for notes, but for the most part Ive chosen the rhythm path in life. My soloing is terrible, and I cant read music at all. There seems to be a lot of good people here, so Im letting my guard down and asking for help. Where should I start? I am not looking to slay ala Zucker in 6 months, but I would like to be able to play fluidly at speed without spending another 15 years in frustration. Im more inclined to learn sitting in front of this idiot box, so any online beginners tutorials/lessons would be great. but at this point Im a begger, so I dont have the luxury of being a chooser. Any help/advice is sincerely appreciated. Adam
#1. Start picking out solos by ear. The greats all did this and it will work for you as well. Start with some simpler stuff, like David Gilmour. #2. Learn some basic theory. Learn scales, chords, modes and how they relate to eachother so you can open up the fretboard. #3. Don't look at this as relearning everything. Take it in little bits, one at a time. Learn a new lick everyday, set a practice schedule.
Contact Tomo Fujita - No kidding, you've read about him here likely. If not, he's an instructor at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Great player, great guy... He has lots of options. He has a video/dvd with an accompanying book called "Accelerate Your Guitar Playing" that is terrific. He also has some other lesson material, new stuff coming out. You can learn from the dvd (or vhs tape), he has a cd/book and he also gives correspondence lessons if you are motivated in that way. Tell him I sent you his way, I'm not affiliated with Tomo at all, just a fan. www.tomofujita.com
Hi Adam, Not too late to change your bad habit. I have taught many people who has been playing over 10-20 years. This instrument is easy to start but it's really difficult to control if you want to control deeply. Get this dvd and work on Chromatic ex. 1-3, Work on groove ex on Bb Blues (this gives you great left hand mute technique and you can hear more changes for solo, because you can use Rt 3 7 guide tone) http://www.halleonard.com/item_deta...fer=search&type=product&keywords=tomo+fujita+ Don't worry about theory and reading. How to play is first thing important for me. Then you can work on section 3 rhythmic training. Here you can learn basic rhythm to advanced 16th. This will help about your time skill and how to use your metronome. Good Luck, And "Triads" for connect everything on your fretboard. no more secret. no more frustration. All you need to find clear goal and good plan ahead. "Fun" is waiting for you. Tomo
Hi John, I will continue to show you "Fun" stuff on guitar. Please share any ideas that helped you to your friends. Guitar playing.... is fun to show your ideas to others. I am very fortunate to have teaching career. By the way, how did you like my book/dvd??? Changing bad habits to good habits. "Reform your playing" Thanks, Tomo
Hey Tomo, The book/dvd was excellent. The first thing I did was just scroll thorugh the examples, and I found several areas that I need work on. Now I'm applying what I'm learning to correct the problems. I think that the huge majority of players would benefit from this.
Some resources that have stuff I've used: speed mechanics for lead guitar - how to play arbitrary stuff fast and fluid The powertab program - lots of transcriptions in standard notation (and also tab if you must) The berklee sightreading book - learn to read, it's good for you The real book - and endless source of jazz material to solo over. Some is frightfully hard, others plesantly aproachable. The fretboard logic series - very aproachable beginner theory for guitar.
Tomo, Your book and video came in the mail today, I browsed through it and cant wait to dig into it and re-define my mechanical aptitude. Many thanks to you and to John for turning me on to this. I expect great things to happen soon. Sturmur, I checked out cyberfret.com, what a resource! They really do have everything covered for the beginner. Lots of the novice stuff that I missed out on by being self taught is right there for me. Thanks mate! Mark, Ive always listened to, and tried to pick apart solos from the greats, but even with my advanced knowledge of audio manipulation (winamp and a few plugins to transpose pitch and slow down), it just never clicks right. Im sure a lot of it has to do with transposing notes on the right strings, thats a big thing I have to work on. Darial, Thanks for the further suggested reading. Ill be ordering at least a few of those titles in the near future, as soon as I have become proficient at the teachings of Tomo. For anyone that may come across this thread, here are a few other sites that Ive found. http://www.theorylessons.com/ - Everything for the beginner to advanced. Literally weeks worth of solid reading in here. http://www.wholenote.com/ - This site has just about anything you could ask for, lessons, tab, even a java script that plays out written music so you can hear whats going on. http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ - Pretty much the last tab site youll ever need. Everything from rock and jazz standards to obscura majora. Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions and help! Adam
Start by learning pentatonic and major scales. If you like blues, play along with the blues greats (BB King, Albert King etc...) the blues is the foundation of Rock and Roll. After you get some blues licks under your fingers you should then be able to hear where people like, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff BecK, Stevie Ray Vaughn etc... got their ideas. The major scales are useful in adding notes not related to the blues scale or for country and jazz. The best way to learn is to find someone to jam with, either chord progressions or tunes. When I was first learning how to solo and friend of mine and I would tale turns jamming over slow blues in any key we felt like. This did wonders for me (it taught me feel, note selection, helped to hear the scales etc...)and is basically the way everyone learns how to play. DON"T BEAT YOURSELF UP, YOU DON"T HAVE TO RELEARN EVERYTHING.
I've had great results with Blues You Can Use by John Ganapes. Breaks-down the blues into bite size chunks covering theory and technique. Each lesson has a solo to build on theory/technique, mostly geared toward lead playing. Great coverage on the penatonic, the 5 penatonic positions and related chords.
Here's another kudos for the fretboard logic series. helps you to understand why the guitar is like no other instrument and why "sight" reading is not for us anyway. Also a reminder sing or hum what you play! At some point you have to break away from systematic , logical freatbaord boxes and make a direct connection to "sing with your fingers" It's kind of wierd but all of the maj/min pentatonics or mixolydian stuff just helps to mechanically know where the notes are all at(left brain) you need to get the right brain in the show also !Sing it.... hum .. whistle !! think of a phrase in your head, sing it out loud, find it on the guitar. dividends will occur!!!!!!! You should also have some pieces your just dying to play!! sometimes spending an hour figuring out ten notes doesn't seem worth it so you just noodle on something you already know! That means you don't want it bad enough! concentrate on the stuff that you just love ; whatever it is! that way the reward for all the hard work is there. you'll be so dam happy!!
